Cross-functional management

What is cross-functional management?

Cross-functional leadership is a crucial discipline where the leader plays a key role in managing collaboration across the organization. This involves not only setting a clear direction, but also finding the right people with the necessary skills and competencies to tackle tasks and challenges that extend across traditional departmental boundaries.

The manager is also responsible for establishing the appropriate conditions and framework for cross-functional collaboration. This includes creating a culture where employees feel encouraged to share knowledge, ideas and resources across units. When these conditions are in place, cross-functional collaboration becomes smoother and it becomes clear why it's crucial to the success of the organization.

A great cross-functional leader understands the importance of breaking down silos and fostering an open and collaborative culture. This not only creates a more efficient organization, but also a more flexible and adaptable one that can better meet today's complex challenges.

Why it's important to work with cross-functional management

The ability to lead across boundaries is a sought-after skill for leaders, and for good reason. Modern organizations cross a variety of boundaries, and when these movements are smooth and seamless, it strengthens organizational cohesion and collaboration.

Without cross-functional leadership, collaboration becomes difficult and silos quickly build up between different functions in the organization. Furthermore, citizens, users or customers can feel like they are falling between two stools if disciplines, organizations and sectors struggle to build coherence and unity across the board.

It's largely the responsibility and task of management to make this collaboration work. They set the direction, remove obstacles, prioritize resources and explain why collaboration is so important. Therefore, it is an important task for you as a manager to lead appropriately across the board.

Five types of boundaries in cross-functional management

A basic approach to cross-functional management involves distinguishing between five different types of boundaries that cross-functional management crosses:

Vertical boundaries: These boundaries extend across hierarchical levels of the organization. Cross-functional management often involves breaking down hierarchical structures to promote effective collaboration and communication across levels.
Horizontal boundaries: Horizontal boundaries cut across organizational functions and units. Cross-functional management focuses on building bridges between these entities to promote information sharing and collaboration.
Boundaries with and between stakeholders: These boundaries cut across the organization's collaboration with external stakeholders, such as citizens, associations, businesses, etc. Cross-functional leadership works to build positive relationships and partnerships.
Demographic boundaries: This area is about understanding and managing differences in gender, age, ethnicity and nationality. Cross-functional leadership seeks to create inclusion and diversity within the organization.
Geographical boundaries: These boundaries extend between localities, regions, countries and time zones. Cross-functional management often involves coordinating activities across geographical areas.

This comprehensive approach is necessary to create an agile and efficient organizational structure that can manage and take advantage of these boundaries to foster collaboration and innovation.

LEAD's approach to cross-functional management

At LEAD, we are experts in cross-functional leadership and offer advice and support to leaders in this area. Our goal is to help organizations create agile structures and an organizational culture that promotes collaboration and innovation across departments, disciplines, citizens, suppliers and other organizations.

Depending on your need to engage in cross-functional management, we can combine the five different types of boundaries involved in the work. We tailor all development activities to your organization. These include, for example, that we:

Presentations on how to increase well-being, quality and efficiency through cross-functional and cross-boundary management.
Conduct workshops on how you as a management team can strengthen the value chains that move across the organization.
Designs and implements development programs that build personal and organizational skills and capabilities in cross-functional leadership.

When you partner with LEAD as your cross-functional management consultant, you gain access to our years of practical experience and extensive research-based knowledge on the subject. We focus on how leaders and organizations can increase efficiency and achieve better results by viewing boundaries as resources for collaboration and innovation for the benefit of citizens, users or customers.

How we can help you

We offer you management and organizational sparring, research-based teaching and presentations on cross-functional management as well as training courses with a specific focus on giving you and your organization general management skills. Read examples of our services here.

Presentations

Inspiring research-based presentations on cross-functional leadership for all levels of your organization.

Sparring

Sparring in the development of your strategy, decisions and initiatives.

Workshop

Facilitation of active workshops focusing on competence development at management and executive level.

Contact us to learn more about what we can do for your organization

Are you facing an organizational change? Do you need strategic advice or a cultural development program?

Contact us and together we will tailor a process that develops the exact competencies and structures that strengthen and future-proof your organization.

Claus Elmholdt

Professional Director, Founder
Cand.Psych.Aut. & Ph.d.
Associate Professor in Management and Organizational Psychology, Aalborg University

Mobile: +45 26 14 51 57
Email: ce@lead.eu